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These are great articles. Thanks for posting—it is going to take me a few days to get them all read but Basye was such an interesting rosarian. And he gives so many great suggestions on more than a few directions to take for developing resistance in modern roses. If I was only 15 yrs younger, some of these projects sound like they would take more than a few yrs to accomplish.
Hi Kim, thanks for posting about Dr. Basye’s Myrrh Rose, it’s the bush where the lovely lady stands next to, right? Too bad very few gardens have that … hopefully Paul Barden will inform us about his plant.
Folks rave about Scepter’d Isle myrrh scent, that’s why I bought it, and am disappointed that it smells like dirty socks. I would love to smell Dr. Basye’s myrrh rose.
Thanks, Jackie. I’m glad you enjoyed them. The only problem with being any younger is you would still be occupied with what kept you busy when you were that age. But, I understand what you mean. I think that is what stimulated me to obtain Basye’s Thornless Wichurana in the first place. I figured mixing that with good minis then combining the best of that line with the best of the Legacy line should produce something along the lines of what Dr. Basye suggested.
Teresa, I don’t know if you would think any more highly of Basye’s Myrrh Scented rose than you do about Scepter’d Isle. It could well be you just aren’t a “licorice” fan. There are some which are so strongly scented, they require either time or distance between freshly open and your nose. Cressida is one which has such a stench when freshly opened, it needs some “aging” before it’s enjoyable sniffing. The scent is so concentrated in those petals, I quickly learned not to put it near my face when fresh as the stink actually absorbed into my mustache and I’d have to go wash my face to get rid of it. Given a while for them to evaporate and evolve, and it was OK.
Hi Kim, I’m a fan of Myrrh scent, but Scepter’d Isle scent got screwed up in my alkaline soil. Folks in acidic soil like Niels in Denmark love its scent, while Niels thinks Mary Magdalene is light (it’s strong in my alkaline soil). Queen of Sweden’s myrrh scent is great in my soil, so is Mary Magdalene’s scent. When I put acid fertilizer on Mary, its fabulous scent was gone. I had to scrape off the acid-fertilizer, and watered her with my alkaline tap water to get her scent back.
The musk scent in Annie L. McDowell that you bred is incredibly heavenly in my alkaline soil, but might not be so elsewhere. Mary Magdalene’s myrrh in my soil is better than bottled frankincense. It reminds me of a campfire, or the incense in Catholic church. It’s a button-hole bloom, it has no descendants. In such case of so little pollen, would it work to strip off petals, cut off the stigma, but leave the stamens to dry off on the stem, then use the stem to brush against another’s stigma?
Talking about Dr Basye’s thornless wichurana… Kim… the little seedling I had from it didn’t make it through the winter. A late frost took it out.
So… I’m going to embark on a path to ‘make’ my own. I’m going to do two things… one is to put ‘Renae’ with wichurana and then breed within this generation (repeatedly) until something thornless appears. The second thing I’m going to do is combine wichurana with the OP ‘Commander Gillet’ seedlings if they ever flower.
‘Softee’ is wichurana based through 0-47-19 and is completely smooth… I wonder how that would go put back to wichurana?
I think wichurana is a good candidate for doubling as well…
Simon, those sound like great ideas.
Hey… I was just thinking, another thing you might consider as well as what you are thinking, is to try germinating many OP R. wichurana seeds as well…from things written elsewhere and if I recall correctly, I think this is how Dr Basye actually came up with his thornless wichurana selection, (anyone here please correct me if I got that wrong).
I said somewhere that I am done with species, however I forgot that I have this little thornless wichurana quest project in mind for my R. wichurana selection which is threatening to take over my mom’s front yard ATM !
I believe my R. wichurana selection flowers in December (our summer), and I WILL be collecting all the OP seeds with the sole purpose of keeping any thornless seedlings, ohh… and any that turn out dwarfed !
…errr…this is a close as I am ever likely to get into single species “breeding” (if you can call it that), unless I change my mind, yet again !! LOL
… and who knows, a tiny percentage of them might even be natural amphidiploids (diploid>>>>>tetraploid) too !
LATE EDIT: above should more correctly read:
"… and who knows, a tiny percentage of them might even be natural chromosome doubled R. wichurana selfed seedlings (diploid>>>>>tetraploid) too ! "
George
About “any that turn out dwarfed” your chances will be better with Grouse or Partrige that threw many dwards with most wichurana genes.
Hi Pierre, definitely correct there !